


called home

by realbutnotsopure



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 12:48:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12582252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/realbutnotsopure/pseuds/realbutnotsopure
Summary: She dies on Earth.





	called home

**Author's Note:**

> Recommended music to listen to while reading: Dumbledore's farewell.

She dies on Earth.

In the end there is no choice, no sacrifice or explosion. Simply a confused soldier, a gunshot and a quiet gasp leaving Shepard’s lips. It happened so quickly, so softly, that the asari and turian beside her noticed nothing, they kept firing at the every sprinting husk they saw, believing she was doing the same. The war quietly continues around her as Shepard falls to her knees. By the time her friends detects that something is wrong, it’s already too late. Shepard is alive, fighting beside them, and then she is not.

* * *

 

It is Liara that gets to her first, but it's nothing her biotics or clumsy medical fingers can fix. Liara simply presses her hand on the wound, screaming at the shooting to stop and pause, take a break, begging the war to halt and let them save her. By the time Garrus makes it to their side, Shepard's barely breathing. _It's a shit death_ , is the only thing he can think. A single shot shouldn't end her. It's the way their enemies die. The way the geth, the husks and the Cerberus soldiers die. Not her.  

* * *

 

Liara stops screaming and weeps. Shepard's blood stands in great contrast to her blue fingers and it keeps coming. Good, Liara thinks. It means she still lives. Orders are given through Shepard's helmet, the war continues, the world unknowing or not caring that she's gone. There is no time to mourn. There is never a time to mourn, Liara know this, Liara lives by this simple phrase. She touches Shepard's face, leaving the soldier's own blood trickling down her face, and leaves.

* * *

 

Garrus is by her side when she dies. There is no sigh, no gasp, not even an exhale of breath. She dies quietly, without a sound, without any movement. It is only her hand that goes limp in his that lets him know that it's over and he breaks, for he had not realized that she'd been gripping his hand back. _Let me redo it_ , he yells into her hair. _Give her back_. The war leaves no time for grief but Garrus takes it anyway, shielding her body as the husks and banshees closes in on them. _Let me redo it._

* * *

Anderson was looking for red hair and bruised but stable, always stable, fingers but it is blue, blue eyes, blue face and fingers that greets him. He recognize her features and connects the asari, with grief hard in her face and a N7 gun shaking in her hand, to _her_. He understands and something dies in him too, grief emerging through the aching pain he is in. There is some relief when the Illusive man pulls the trigger.

* * *

 

In the end there was no choice for Shepard to make. She didn't end the war. There was no final peace or happiness in the last moment of her life, simply a weeping friend and a hand pressed to hers, as she died on the ground in the cold streets of London. No time for goodbyes, or reflecting or regretting the life she has had. There was only time for one final breath, as a car exploded down the street, as Garrus screamed above her and a ship, that in her dying eyes was the Normandy, crossed the sky. And then she let go.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading<3  
> No idea where this came from really but it felt good to get some of the mass effect grief out of me. Please let me know what you thought about it. Let's cry together.


End file.
